Fort Townsend Historical State Park History

Be it Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington, That our Delegate in Congress be, and he is hereby, instructed to use his best endeavors with the proper authorities, to have a military post established, as soon as practicable, at Port Townsend, Washington Territory.

  --Passed January 30, 1856.

Fort Townsend Historical State Park preserves the site of one of the first US military establishments on the Salish Sea, the inland saltwaterways of todays’s Washington State.  It was established just three years after the creation of the Washington Territory by the US government on lands that had been inhabited by Indigenous people for thousands of years.

Indigenous Lands

Fort Townsend Historical State Park lies within the traditional territory of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Quileute Tribe, and Suquamish Tribe. For thousands of years this area has provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. The harbor now known as Port Townsend was part of an important travel route utilizing portages between North Beach and Kah Tai Lagoon on the north and between Port Townsend and Oak Bay on the south. The portages avoided treacherous currents and exposed water at Point Wilson and Marrowstone Point.

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Point No Point in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including the lands and waters around Port Townsend.

Most S’Klallam tribal members refused to leave their homeland and move to the Skokomish Reservation as provided for in the treaty; some, under the leadership of Chief James Balch, purchased land on Dungeness Bay that became the village of Jamestown. Others purchased land near the Port Gamble lumber mill, where many found employment. The Port Gamble S’Klallam Reservation was established in 1938; The Jamestown S’Klallam Reservation was established in 1981.

Treaties, Resistance and Raiders from the North

Poor communication at the treaty councils and provocations by territorial officials and local settlers afterwards led to armed conflict between allied tribes against US government forces and volunteer militias. Most of the conflict took place in the southern reaches of Puget Sound, and largely ended after an engagement in Seattle (“the Battle of Seattle”) on January 26, 1856.

During this period, the Washington Territorial Legislature sent a request to the Secretary of the Navy asking for a steam-powered warship to be stationed in the Salish Sea to defend the settler population from the perceived threats from local Indigenous people—“at least eight thousand Indians, of whom two thousand are warriors”—and others from “warlike tribes inhabiting the coast, and numerous islands north of us, as far as Sitka.”

The request was followed with a resolution to the US Congress from the Territorial Legislature four days after the “Battle of Seattle,” asking for the establishment of a US Army fort at Port Townsend.

Captain George Vancouver had surveyed and named the “very safe and … capacious harbour” for Marquis George Townshend (the “h” was later dropped), who had led the final siege of Quebec in the British victory against the French in 1759.

The town of Port Townsend had become the US Customs Port of Entry in 1854, and was growing into what would be, until the 1880s, one of the principal cities of Washington Territory. Its location by a primary maritime entry point into the territory made it a logical choice for the construction of a military base.

Building the Fort

Fort Townsend was established October 26, 1856, on the orders of Lt Colonel Silas Casey. The land on which it was built had not technically been ceded by its Indigenous owners, as the Point No Point Treaty was not ratified by the US Senate until April 29, 1859. President James Buchanan signed an executive order on January 29, 1859, establishing the Fort Townsend Military Reservation years after the fort had already been constructed, but still prior to ratification of the treaty.

The fort’s lands were well supplied with old-growth timber, and trees were selectively cut for building material. The area also featured a “first rate spring of water,” and extended to an area surveyed as “Snelhan Prairie,” (today’s Jefferson County International Airport) which provided garden produce (lots of potatoes!) and hay, displacing long-established Indigenous use and stewardship of the prairie.

Initial construction included three buildings for officers’ quarters, a guardhouse with two cells for prisoners, a combination bakery and library, a hospital and a two story barracks for enlisted soldiers with a kitchen, messroom and lounge.

Inspector General Colonel Joseph Mansfield visited the post on December 3, 1858, and reported that the buildings were “judiciously planned & executed, and the soldiers are particularly well accommodated.” He also reported “considerable intoxication” and noted that there had been 74 desertions since the post had been established barely two years earlier. He blamed the desertions on:

• “the worthless unprincipled character of many recruits”
• “the want of proper discipline & instructions at the Recruiting Depot”
• “the vicinity of the post to the British frontier, where gold diggings are enticing”

He also reiterated the importance of stationing a steam-powered naval vessel in the area as protection from “depredations by northern Indians, from the British & Russian possessions.”

He also noted that the fort didn’t offer a good vantage point for the detection and interdiction of hostile vessels, located as it was in the protected embayment of Port Townsend.

On and Off Fort

A boundary dispute with Britain over the jurisdiction of the San Juan Islands (the “Pig War”) caused most of the personnel from Fort Townsend to be ordered into duty on San Juan Island on July 9, 1859. All of the regular army troops were withdrawn from Fort Townsend in 1861, as priorities shifted toward the US Civil War. For the duration of the war, the fort was only garrisoned with volunteers, if at all.

General Henry Halleck, U.S. Grant’s Chief of Staff in the final years of the Civil War, recommended in 1866 that Fort Townsend be abandoned, but General Edward R.S. Canby, namesake of the fort later constructed at Cape Disappointment, recommended retention and maintenance of the post due to its good harbor and the ability to move troops quickly from there to potential deployments in the region.

In 1874, after the San Juan Islands border dispute was settled in favor of the United States, troops returned to Fort Townsend. As a part of the restoration of the grounds, they raised a 130-foot flagpole, cut from the surrounding forest. By 1876, General O.O. Howard was able to report that “the buildings have been repaired and the grounds cleared of the brushwood that covered part of them at my last visit. I think Captain George H. Burton who is in charge has reason to be gratified at the order and beauty of his post.”

In 1877, most of the troops from Fort Townsend were sent into the field to pursue non-treaty Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph and others, under the command of Generals O.O. Howard and Nelson A. Miles, who obtained Chief Joseph’s surrender near the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana on October 5, 1877.

Fort Townsend continued to be garrisoned by fewer than 100 officers and enlisted men, and many military inspectors recommended its closure. In 1884, General Miles’ report to the Secretary of War noted that Fort Townsend’s limitations left the Puget Sound region for all practical purposes defenseless.

In 1894, General Elwell S. Otis issued a prophetic report, stating “It might almost as well not exist.” Just a short time later, an accident with a kerosene lamp started a fire which entirely destroyed the barracks building at Fort Townsend. The troops abandoned the post and moved to Fort Vancouver on March 6, 1895. The fort was decommissioned and the military reservation was transferred to the US Department of the Interior on June 28, 1895. Veteran service members served as caretakers of the property until 1926, when an inspection determined that there was nothing of value left to guard and the caretaker was dismissed.

On July 1, 1935, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Cape George was established on an outlying unit of Fort Worden and the flagpole from Fort Townsend was relocated to the camp.

During World War II, the US Navy constructed a building on the former fort land now known as the “Torpedo X-Ray Tower.” The 65-foot-tall brick building on a concrete slab with large wooden doors was built to house the US Navy Explosives Laboratory. Captured enemy mines and torpedoes were examined and deactivated in the facility to provide intelligence on their capabilities to navy engineers.

Making a Park

The State Parks Committee (predecessor of todays’ Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission) obtained an option to purchase the fort property from the federal government, but the option expired in 1929 before funds were appropriated to make the purchase.

In 1953, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) entered into an agreement with the federal government to develop recreational facilities on the Fort Townsend property and designated it as Old Fort Townsend State Park. The flagpole was returned from the long-closed CCC Camp Cape George to Fort Townsend at a ceremony marking the centennial of the establishment of the fort on October 28, 1956.

The WSPRC purchased 226 acres of the former military reservation from the US Bureau of Land Management on April 2, 1958, for use as an historical monument, ensuring its permanent protection. An additional 125 acres were transferred to the WSPRC on October 13, 1968, and the park was dedicated shortly after.

In 1994, 309 acres of Old Fort Townsend State Park were classified as a Natural Forest Area, protecting the remaining ancient forest in areas of the property containing vestiges of the original old-growth forest.